A federal jury in Ohio ordered the chemical giant to pay $5.1 million to the victim after DuPont deliberately discharged polluted wastewater into a river, causing a man to develop cancer.
The sick man, David Freeman, 56, a resident of Washington County, Ohio, accused DuPont’s plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia, of discharging perfluorooctanoic acid (C8) into the Ohio River, one of the main tributaries of the Mississippi River, causing residents along the river to He suffered from many diseases due to contaminated drinking water, and he himself suffered from testicular cancer due to exposure to contaminated water.
DuPont declined to comment on the ruling, but claimed that the relevant drinking water contained only trace amounts of PFOA, which was not enough to cause harm to the human body. Don Jackson, a former spokesman for the DuPont plant involved, told the court that she was not aware that PFOA was being discharged into the river when she told local residents that the drinking water was safe.
Freeman’s attorney showed Jackson internal DuPont documents and memos about concerns about contamination caused by PFOA, many of which Jackson said she had never seen before.
The jury found that DuPont’s pollution discharge behavior contained “actual malice” and will consider the specific amount of punitive damages from the 7th.
This is the second time a federal jury in Ohio has ruled in a DuPont pollution case. About 3,500 residents, including Freeman, have filed lawsuits in court saying they suffer from PFOA-linked illnesses. In the first DuPont pollution lawsuit heard in 2015, the court ordered DuPont to compensate a woman suffering from cancer US$1.6 million, but did not require punitive damages.
DuPont was founded in 1802 and is headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware. PFOA is an essential processing aid in the manufacturing of nonstick materials such as Teflon and other brands. High doses of perfluorooctanoic acid have caused cancer, embryonic malformations and other diseases in animal experiments.
